Sonia WILLIAMS – nee TURNER

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Sonia WILLIAMS – nee TURNER

New South Wales Police Force

Regd. # 36424

Rank: ?

[blockquote]”First female to be stationed with the NSW ‘ Public Order & Riot Squad ‘ “[/blockquote]

Stations: ?, MEOCS, PORS, THE ROCKS

Service: From? May 2002to24 October 2013 = 11 years Service

Awards: ? – No find on It’s an honour

Born: ?

Cause for leaving: HOD Injuries

Age: ?

An article on P.T.S.D., attempted suicide and coming out on the other side Life trials spur boxer toward first pro fight
“Posts by Sunshine Valley Gazette” on April 7, 2016

Sonia WILLIAMS nee TAYLOR – NSWPF – Retired HOD 2012

By Richard Bruinsma

The bright eyes of Mooloolah boxer Sonia Williams do nothing to reveal the scars of the challenges she’s faced over the past five years.

She endured sexual discrimination and physical abuse as the first female member of the New South Wales police riot squad, countless work-related injuries and 22 surgeries, a medical discharge from the police force, depression and four suicide attempts – but she is now rebuilding her life and a boxing career, and hoping to be a role model for others.

The 33-year-old won all three rounds to record a dominant victory in her first amateur boxing bout in Caloundra in February, and she is now training for her first professional fight on the Gold Coast in December.

“People ask me who I aspire to, who is my role model,” Mrs Williams said.

“But I’m my own role model, because I don’t know anyone who has been through what I’ve been through and survived.”

Mrs Williams grew up as a self-confessed tom boy, and was a competitive body builder and first degree Tae Kwon Do black belt by age 18.

She was NSW Womens Full Contact Sparring Champion from 14 to 18, and won a bronze medal in bare knuckle contact fighting at the World Martial Arts Games in 2000.

At 18, she followed her life dream and joined the NSW police force, where she went on to become the first female ever to be signed to the riot squad, with some 80 male colleagues.

That’s where life started bombarding her with challenges.

She was advised by a colleague she was unwelcome in the male-dominated squad and that she would be “broken”. Her knee was busted badly in her first “soft” training event on her very first day.

However, she persevered, before eventually leaving the riot squad in 2010, but was medically discharged from the police force, perhaps somewhat ironically, after being badly injured in a student university protest in May 2012.

After her discharge, and despite moving to Queensland with husband Glenn, she battled lingering injury and pain, lost life focus and fell into depression. She attempted suicide four times, the fourth when she smashed her car at high speed into telephone pole on Steve Irwin Way in late 2014 – she escaped with only two broken feet.

It was the crash that changed her life.

“I had the sense knocked into me,” she confesses. “I had no goals, I wasn’t boxing, I had nothing; I had the injuries that were always there and nothing seemed to be getting any better.”